John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DIANA JOHNSTONE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“The New York Times Continues to Outdo Itself in the Production of Fake News
“The NYT and the intelligence services behind it have an ingenious ploy -- they want to undermine Trump and drive him insane by having him distrust everyone around him”
Yes, there are people in the United States doing very questionable things to undermine Trump.
But what this writer importantly forgets, as do all the others who rail against the opposition to Trump and the tactics used, is the nature of Trump himself.
Trump is the most dangerous man ever to be President. I thought George Bush was bad. He was indeed a moron who was led around by the nose by the near-Nazis, Rumsfeld and Cheney, but Trump is something even worse.
He will accept anything from anyone who helps keep him in power. The Pentagon. The Israel Lobby. The CIA. Billionaires. They all get whatever they want so long as he is kept in power. He really is a friend to no one but himself, just as he is loyal to no one or to any principle but himself. His complete lack of loyalties, whether to staff or to his marriage, are almost the stuff of a grotesque novel.
And the results, in terms of reaction to him, are entirely things he has brought down upon his own head.
You can't go stomping around in this world, expressing contempt for almost everyone you see, publicly insulting individuals, humiliating others, almost spitting on people, without consequences.
Now, added to frightening, uncouth, and unacceptable manner, what the man has steadily worked towards is nothing less than economic ruin and quite possibly a major war. A world economy with many fragilities, much the result of America’s own past ungovernable excesses, is being subjected to an all-out assault in terms of trade and international institutions and the use of coercive methods like massive amounts of sanctions.
And the world’s peace and security are being seriously undermined by efforts to threaten and intimidate major countries such as Russia and China and Iran and, again, international institutions, such as the United Nations. And the effects ad efforts at massive enforcement of a genuinely sick sanctions regime make everyone feel threatened by an all-demanding United States.
We have seen nothing like this in generations. It is, of course, not all the work of Trump, but he has cheerfully pitched in and enlarged the malignant work, again with an eye to nothing else but his own meaningless (to anyone but himself) survival in office.
I once believed that he had something to offer, something only in limited areas but very important areas, relations with Russia and bringing some reason to the Middle East, but I no longer believe that at all.
He has nothing to add to the world but disorder, incivility, and threats, plus he sells national policy to the highest bidder who can help him to remain in power.
He will, by the way, literally do anything to try staying in office. His wanton destruction of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, an internationally supported and effective arrangement, and his illegal move, in terms of international agreements, of America’s embassy to Jerusalem are the most conspicuous examples, and they are both extremely dangerous examples whose full effects have yet to be felt.
Why did he do these absolutely wrong-headed things? To please American billionaire Sheldon Adelson and the man Adelson works around the clock to support with money and press and pressure, mass-killer Prime Minister Netanyahu. Trump’s lurches in policies will put many tens, or even hundreds, of millions of dollars into his campaign war chest for 2020, plus gain him some additional lobbying support.
So, the American people and the entire world are forced to pay with added fear and uncertainties and injustice so that this man can be re-elected. That’s some statesmanship. It’s nothing less than a nightmare.
Just compare his crude ways, his sudden lurches, his words about almost any subject, his many impulsive personal attacks, to Putin’s typically calm and methodical behavior in world affairs, even when under immense pressure from abroad.
There is no comparison. One man is a narcissist with no talent except for an audibly-throbbing ego and making noise and intimidating people and an unprincipled willingness to do almost anything which helps himself. The other is a statesman, one who thinks about what he is doing and acts calmly, willing to talk intelligently and respectfully with any of the people he typically calls “partners.”
No, I don’t even think there is anything to bemoan even if those after Trump are successful with underhanded methods. All the stuff we read about an attack on the Constitution is bogus. America’s Constitution has been dead on its feet for decades.
You can’t name a right Americans thought they had that Washington has not abused, again and again. And the political system has become a giant, costly, money-driven dumb-show with almost no trace of genuine democracy and not a lot of respect for citizens. The very election of Trump demonstrates it, too. What was the choice for voters? Trump or Hillary Clinton, both dreadful people, neither fit to lead a great nation and neither with any respect for others.
No, in America, no matter which candidate you vote for, you get exactly the same result, rule of the power establishment: the billionaires and giant corporations and powerful lobbies – all faithfully served and protected by dangerously malignant institutions like the CIA and the Pentagon. National elections have become a shell game.
